Sydney, New South Wales

Arrived in Sydney & went off exploring. Walked through the city to Darling Harbour first of all which was quite lovely. it had lots of nice bars & restaurants & just had a really nice feel to it. From here we walked to the famousÂ Sydney harbour where we saw the harbour bridge & of course sydney opera house. Day 2 was more of the same - just exploring the city, shopping, getting a feel for all the different areas. on the monday we got the ferry across to Manly beach. this was pretty nice. Like a samll seaside town - quite bustly but still cool. we walked right along the beach up to shelley's cove which was an overlook along the east coast. Despite the overcast weather the views were good. Gaz treated me to lunch on the seafront then we got the bus to Bondi beach. This was a HUGE disappointment. It reminded us exactly of Blackpool & we still can't understand why everyone raves about it. I wouldn't say it was a dive. it was nice enough but just your average by-the-sea resort - not much different to any of the ones in england. Was a tad tacky too. In the evening we went on a "free" bar crawl. Our hostel had given us vouchers for a free drink in about 15different bars so we took advantage & devised our own little crawl! was wicked - altho dont think gaz was best pleased at the end of the night when we were practising drunken headstands & i accidentally kicked him in the face!ooooops!

Tuesday we got up & went for a tour around syney opera house. this was well worth the money & it is much more impressive on the inside than it is on the out. We found out lots of interesting info (which we'll share for those who are interested when we return!). After this we headed towards the harbour bridge and went up pylon number 9. Climbed to the top of the pylon and was rewarded with amazing views of Sydney - overlooking the opera house, the harbour with the bridge behind us. It really was something else. We didn't do the bridge climb 'cause it was too costly but i think the views from the pylon were spectacular enough. At the night i left Gaz watching Tv & went to watch the ballet ("The New Romantics")Â at the opera house. Gaz generously paid for me to go which was a lovely suprise. It was a really nice night despite being on my own i really enjoyed myself & it was extra special with it being in the opera house!

On the Wednesday we went back to the opera house and watched a play called "holding the man". It was about a gay couple who contract HIV & eventually ie from the disease so it was quite serious but the acting was quality. Gaz liked the 1st half which was more comedic but got bored during the 2nd half when it got more sombre. Wednesday evenng we met up with Amy & Joe & Bart (from the whitsundays trip) & went on a night out in King's Cross. were all having a mint night but i might have took the drinking a little too far & well lets just say i wasn't very well haha! Needless to say this completey runined the next day with us both recovering from hefty hangovers!

On the Friday we went on a day trip to the Blue Mountains. This is basically a mountain range whereby the trees in the distance appear blue because of the gases they give out. Because the weather wasn't that hot they weren't overly blue but we got the general effect. Went and saw the legendary 3sisters (rock outcrops on the top of the mountain range) & then went on the steepest railway in the world. It was in previous years used by miners & was despite it's title suprisingly steep. I honestly thought i was going to fall out of it. It was amazing it stayed on the tracks & didn't topple over it was that steep! We also went to the olympic stadium as part of the trip and had a wander around the complex. Although we didnt actually go inside it was still impressive in terms of design & scale.

All in all Sydney was pretty hectic - lots of people, lots of things to do, sights to see & places to be. We did like it a lot & gaz even checked out the KPMG offices in case the chance of a secondment arises :)